


Anchors

by theroguesgambit



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drugged!Derek, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Tumblr Fic, UST, collection, tags added as needed, truth spell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-25 12:15:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7532344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroguesgambit/pseuds/theroguesgambit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>~A collection of Tumblr drabbles~</p><p>One: “This is just sex. That’s all this has to be.”<br/>Two: They were the worst thing in the world for each other.<br/>Three: Sometimes he lies there tracing it, long after Derek’s fallen asleep.<br/>Four: “So... you’re like an actual Wolfman now.”<br/>Five: There were people in this world that deserved love. And Derek wasn’t one of them.<br/>Six: Who would have thought that high Derek is a very talkative Derek?<br/>Seven: "I decided to stop fighting it."<br/>Eight: Derek can't make him stay.<br/>Nine: <em>Almost...</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Show me how to lie

**Author's Note:**

> Flash fic written during the course of a song.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flash fic written during the course of a song.

“This is just sex. That’s all this has to be.”

It had been enough to break down the barrier keeping them apart, the wall of tension holding Derek still and distant even as his eyes raked over Stiles with a heat neither of them had ever addressed until now. It had been going on for longer than either of them could admit, longer than they’d probably even noticed.

But Derek was Derek and he was never going to do anything about it on his own.

“Just sex,” Stiles breathed, and nearly whimpered at the way Derek’s eyes flashed, nostrils flaring at the word… or maybe at the want radiating off Stiles in waves. Stiles tried not to think about that. How Derek had been able to sense him,  _ smell _ him wanting… because if he’d known about it for all this time and hadn’t made a move, what were the chances that one little verbal offer of strings-free sex would make any kind of—

Derek had him up against the wall a second later, body rocking into him, breaths sharp and eager as he ducked in to catch Stiles’ lip between hungry teeth.

It was just sex,  _ just sex _ . Skin and lips and hot,  _ frantic _ friction and…

_ Fuck _ , was there any such thing in the world as “just sex”?

Because sex was  _ awesome _ . Sex was unbelievable. Sex broke Stiles down and left him quivering and aching and wishing he never had to do anything else ever.

Or maybe that was just sex with Derek.

.-

It didn’t occur to Stiles until much later, when they lay tangled up in bedsheets and in each other - Derek’s arm curled possessively around Stiles’ waist and face nuzzled against him, mouthing unconsciously against the line of his nape - that it wasn’t “just sex” for him, wasn’t even close.

And Derek hadn’t been listening for those magic words to get things started, but for the jump in his heartbeat that signified they were a lie.


	2. No Light, No Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flash fic written during the course of a song.
> 
> Not a happy one, sorry.

They were the worst thing in the world for each other.

That had been obvious from day one, from that first moment in the woods, wide-eyed nerves against a wall of frigid, broken rage. Youth and biting sarcasm and intelligence against… Derek.

There was nothing about this that made sense.

That didn’t stop them falling into each other, from crawling, stumbling,  _ surging _ back into each other over and over again. Constantly. Repeatedly. Until Derek was drowning in it, until he couldn’t see the surface anymore, until he realized he wasn’t even really looking.

But they were drowning each other, sure enough. Derek weighted down by Stiles, tied to this town that had taken so much from him, and Stiles getting colder, angrier, every time Derek tried and failed to pull away. Ran, came faltering back. And Stiles a little harder every time he reappeared. Derek tried to stay sometimes, ended up crawling out of his skin with the weight and pressure of being wanted. Tried leaving, and the loneliness -- the  _ longing _  -- always drove him back.

He could feel it happening. He wasn’t stupid. And he knew it was all his fault. Just as much as he knew he couldn’t do a thing to stop it.

They were toxic for each other, water in each other’s lungs. Each kiss, each caress, each casually tossed word and insult brought them closer to choking.

But they couldn’t pull away.

They just kept sinking deeper.


	3. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "man, i've been dying for something where stiles is fascinated by derek having a solitary scar from his brief "human" interlude." - derekhalee

Sometimes he lies there tracing it, long after Derek’s fallen asleep.

Derek has been injured dozens of times –  _ literally _ dozens – right in front of Stiles. He’d seen the guy gutted, shot with bullets, shot with arrows, shot with  _ wolfsbane,  _ nearly drowned, clawed up by lizard-monsters… and that had just been in the first three months.

And he’d spent months after that kissing his way across Derek’s skin, learning the lines and angles of it, the places where the hair thickens, the rare freckle. And he’s learned not to marvel at the fact that he can be holding a bleeding, shuddering, seemingly  _ dying _ Derek one moment, and licking his way across totally unmarked skin the second they get back to the loft.

That, though… that had been before.

Before Kate. Before they’d lost touch for months. Before Stiles had thought Derek had ditched town without a word  _ again  _ until Scott had found the bullet that had sent them on a hunt to Mexico. Before they’d rescued Derek, who hadn’t quite been Derek. Before his powers had started fading.

Before he’d been human.

And shot.

And marked for death.

And stabbed right in front of Stiles. And Stiles had  _ known _ that would be the end, that he would be losing Derek this time, that Derek couldn’t heal from the deep gouges the way he had so many times before.

The injuries from that night at La Iglesia hadn’t left any marks on Derek’s skin – he’d been repowered, reborn, had  _ evolved _ or whatever soon enough after that for the wounds to heal completely.

No, it was the bullet wound from the shot that had barely grazed him that had sealed itself permanently into Derek’s skin. And somehow that, the fact that it hadn’t even been deep, hadn’t even been life-threatening, has made it all the more captivating in Stiles’ eyes.

Derek had been _human._ _Derek_. Human.

Stiles had lived through it, but in the chain of disasters that had been Kate, berserkers, dead pool, Peter… Stiles hadn’t had much time to sit down and really think about it. About all the ways it could have mattered. All the ways, now, it never would.

He wakes Derek up one night, trailing his lips across the uneven skin. The white marks and pinched lines, a little starburst radiating outward, an echo of a warning that shouldn’t mean anything anymore.

Derek just smirks a little, rolls his eyes, and gathers Stiles up to huddle against his chest.

He thinks that Stiles is worried about it or something. Some kind of bizarre PTSD over the shallow bullet wound, as though Stiles doesn’t have a zillion worse things to have nightmares over.

He probably doesn’t help things when he buries his face against Derek’s throat and breathes “I thought you were gonna die.”

But Derek just tilts Stiles’ head up with a gentle hand, kisses him softly, and breathes “I didn’t. I won’t.”

.-

Sometimes Stiles wonders if he misses Derek the Human. The idea of being on even ground, of not being the weak one, the vulnerable one. Of not having to worry about date night falling on the full moon, or Derek smelling it every time he’s a little bit frustrated, or hearing it every time he’s less than totally honest.

Like… an actual, semi-normal relationship.

But he lies awake late at night, tracing his fingers over the lines of the scar Derek had gotten when he was human, doing his goddamn martyr thing without even thinking about it, without even considering the fact that a few inches up or to the left and he could’ve bled out in that hospital. Stiles had been that close to losing him over something so stupid.

The mark on his skin stands as a reminder of all the things they’d almost had, and how easily it would’ve been to lose them.

Derek hums and tugs Stiles closer, and Stiles watches the scar in the moonlight, and traces the edges until he falls asleep.


	4. Knot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone was talking about Derek potentially knotting post s4, and this just... popped out. :P

“So you’re like an actual Wolfman now.”

They’re at a little motel in Mexico, taking a few hours to sleep before starting in on the long drive back up to Beacon Hills. Or at least… Derek  _ would _ be sleeping if Stiles weren’t standing here in front of him, shifting and stammering out vain attempts at playing casual.

“I can be a wolf or a man, if that’s what you mean.” He just died not six hours ago; he’s really not in the mood for dog jokes.

But it doesn’t look like that’s what Stiles has in mind. He’d come in here too deliberately, his half-formed smirk covering up  _ something. _

“Ok, so… does that mean you can… that you have–” Stiles cuts himself off, a little flushed.

And the heat of attraction coming off his body isn’t a new thing, but the awareness in his eyes is, the way they slide and dance across Derek’s skin before looking away. Something about last night had awoken an awareness in Stiles, and Derek isn’t quite sure how to deal with it. He’s grateful when the searing gaze slides away.

That heat, that desire  _ does _ things to Derek, ok? Things it shouldn’t, because just because Stiles is  _ aware _ of his attraction now, doesn’t mean he’s looking to do anything about it.

So he squeezes his eyes shut as Stiles continues to fumble toward his point.

“I mean you were  _ all _ wolf for a minute there, right? Like totally wolf, with all the wolf parts. So does that mean… I mean…”

Derek’s eyes open to deliver a pointed roll; he huffs out a sigh for good measure.

“Stiles, just spit it out.”

And Stiles looks back to him, gaze hot and hungry, tongue flitting out to wet his lips before they curl into a smirk, his eyes drifting deliberately downwards.

“Actually, I was kind of hoping you could lock it in.”


	5. Don't get too close (It's dark inside)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flash fic, written during the course of a song.
> 
> Angst.

“Don’t you get it? I fucking love you, Derek.”

It  _ hurt _ to hear it. To wonder where the words had come from, what he’d done to earn them, and where they might lead.

“Don’t go, ok? Don’t leave. _ I love you _ .”

Like that would change anything. Like that could  _ fix _ them and all that things that were broken.

_ Derek _ was all of those things. He knew that Stiles imagined himself broken too, and Derek wasn’t selfish enough to think that Stiles didn’t understand pain. What Stiles  _ didn’t _ understand was that Derek…

All Derek  _ was, _ was pain. He didn’t know how else to be. How to fix things, how to even try to be happy.

So how could Stiles possibly stand in front of him – choked voice, clenched jaw, tears in his eyes the same way there had been when he’d been frightened for his father’s life so long ago – and beg Derek to understand and accept that he loved him?

There were people in this world that deserved love. That deserved that expression, that  _ hope,  _ directed at them. And Derek wasn’t one of them.

“I can’t,” he said, and left.


	6. Truth (drugged!Derek)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek gets doped with something (magic, drugs, whatever) and who would have thought that high Derek is a very talkative Derek.

“This was a bad idea,” Derek says, and that little, silly smile is still playing across his face. The one Stiles has already snuck about a dozen pictures of and still can’t get over.

“What was?”

Derek’s head lolls along the back of the couch to look at Isaac. He scrunches up his face a little, hand trailing idly over the leg of his own jeans.

“’Let’s regroup at the loft,’” he says, voice a little gruff in a truly terrible impression of Scott’s Alpha voice. “‘We can work out what’s wrong with Derek there.’  _ None _ of you,” he lifts his hand to point accusingly at each of the pack in turn, “is doing a single bit of research.”

His finger lands on Stiles last, actually poking into his chest before he pauses, looking a little surprised at himself. Or at Stiles’ chest, Stiles can’t be sure.

“We called Doctor Deaton,” Kira jumps in helpfully from her place by the table. “He should be getting back to us soon.”

“And until then,” Erica cuts in, leaning over the arm of the couch where Derek’s sitting, still staring, disgruntled, at Stiles’ chest, “we’ve really got nothing to do but try and entertain ourselves. How do you think we should do that, Derek?”

She’s clearly angling for another round of Awkward Personal Questions, which had started out back in the preserve, when a perfectly innocent inquiry about Derek’s wellbeing had resulted in: “A little unsettled. That spell hit me straight in the chest, right? I’m not in pain, though, which would be a lot easier to handle than some kind of mindwarping spell or body alterations. I’m not changing colors, am I? Or shrinking? Also I’m a little tired but I think that’s because I haven’t been sleeping much lately. Erica and Boyd have been being  _ loud _ even though I asked them not to have sex anymore when I’m trying to sleep because there’s no way anyone can sleep through the noises Erica makes…”

Since then Erica’s been leading the charge on weirdly personal questions. It might just be her personality, but Stiles is pretty sure she’s working at getting back at Derek for his not-really-outting of hers and Boyd’s relationship (as if any of them hadn’t already known anyway.)

Derek just lets out a little, frustrated sigh at her question and says “It’d be a lot more entertaining if you all left,” which, you know, sounds perfectly in character, no surprises there. Until he lifts his gaze about six inches and adds pointedly: “except you.”

Stiles’ brows shoot up, which has absolutely no effect on Derek because Derek’s not staring at his eyebrows, or even his eyes for that matter. No, his attention is firmly set on Stiles’ mouth.

His tongue flits out, nervous, and Derek follows the movement with a predator’s focus.

“I hate it when you do that.”

His hand’s still on Stiles’ chest, now tracing odd little patterns. Almost a caress. Stiles glances to Scott, who just shrugs helplessly.

“Oh. Uh… sorry about that?”

“You  _ should _ be,” Derek snaps, but most of the usual bite’s gone from his words. It sounds gruff with a whole other emotion. “It makes me want to…” He trails off. Stiles’ throat has gone dry.

“Want to what?”

Finally, the gaze moves away from Stiles’ mouth. Set free, it’s tracing all over him instead: up to his eyes, trailing down his neck and then going lower.

“You have no idea the things I’d do to you, Stiles,” he says easily, like he’s not thinking about it. He’s not, obviously, or he wouldn’t be saying it. “Take that mouth of yours and kiss you ‘til you don’t remember what words are. Bite my way across your skin, sucking in such sweet marks. You look like you’d bruise so pretty, show off my bites so everyone knew what I’d done to you, that you were mine.”

He seems to catch himself a little, blinking hard and dragging in a fast, sharp breath. Stiles should probably respond but he feels like he’s been kissed breathless already. Who the hell knew  _ Derek Hale  _ could pull off dirty talk?

Erica’s voice breaks in before they sit there staring at each other too long.

“I didn’t know you had a thing for Stiles.”

Derek snorts at that, finally breaking their gazes to scowl at her. Stiles can finally breathe again. He’s not sure if he’s happy about that.

“ _ Obviously _ . Not much of a secret if you all know about it, is it?”

Erica’s lips quirk, the words spilling out like blood in the water. Stiles would feel bad for Derek if he wasn’t so busy wondering whether he’s shocked, flattered, or aroused right now.

Probably all three.

“Oooh,” Erica intones. “It’s a  _ secret _ crush, is it?”

“It’s not a  _ crush _ .” Derek huffs disdainfully at the word. “Crush means you  _ like _ them. Stiles is… infuriating. Completely annoying, hardheaded spaz…”

“Whoa, wait, hey,” Stiles is still sitting  _ right here _ . “Why don’t we go back to all the things you want to do to me.”

‘Cause that had been embarrassing for  _ Derek _ , not him. Not to mention weird. And hot.

Derek’s attention comes snapping back to him. He frowns, considering.

“I want to gag you.”

Stiles’ face falls, and across the room, Scott bursts into a fit of laughter. But dude, not fair. Derek had been all crazy hot and flirty ten seconds ago. Stiles had been having  _ feelings _ . Mostly in the southerly region, sure, but also some in the parts of his chest where pride and self-confidence reside, and now all that ego boosting is getting knocked back down again.

But Derek’s teeth gleam bright and dangerous suddenly, and during whatever Erica turns to mutter to Isaac and Scott’s continued laughter, he fists Stiles’ shirt and leans in, murmuring:

“With my cock.”

That pride and something else come surging back to life. Stiles grins.

“Well, ok. That’s better then.”

Way better than some lame little secret crush, anyway.


	7. Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The challenge was to write Sterek kissing in as close to 500 words as possible. This skated in at 499.

There are a thousand reasons not to do this. A thousand things that have kept him from even considering it outside of the half-conscious longings he could brush aside in daylight. It’s smarter, safer, to leave good enough alone, to keep from acknowledging what nothing good could ever come from acknowledging.

But when he slides into the room tonight and comes face to face with Stiles, when he looks up with a knowing expression that softens into fondness, when he says, head ducking, “My dad likes you now, creeper. You could’ve used the front door”… suddenly Derek can’t think of a single solitary one.

He’s crossing the room fast, the books he’d brought for research slipping to the floor as he falls into Stiles’ space, close enough to taste the boy’s skin on the air.

Stiles’ eyes skitter up, then float around Derek’s face in an uneven wobble that might seem scared if Derek hadn’t seen Stiles scared before, seen it too many times these past years. No, this is Stiles being startled but intrigued, seeing a puzzle he can’t help wanting to decipher.

And Derek is aching to let Stiles decipher him.

“Derek…?” It comes out tentative, too much air and not enough voice. Derek finds himself falling in closer, as close as he can get without brushing skin. Stiles’ eyes startle shut, mouth parting, breathing in sharp and _wanting_.

Derek needs to say something, but all that comes out is “I need… Stiles, I want…” before Stiles lets out a frantic noise and surges forward.

They don’t waste any time on tentative touches, their mouths parting on contact, gasping against each other before going deep. Derek has Stiles by the nape as Stiles presses, full-bodied, into him, everything hot and hungry at the first wet slide of tongues.

Stiles whines, hands darting everywhere, the palms dragging down Derek’s biceps and sides, clenching at his jaw and tugging in some crazed attempt to drag Derek’s face straight into his. His mouth moves with equal fervor, seeming desperate to fill the first few seconds of their kiss with everything he’s ever imagined: hard licks and dragging teeth. His whole body is wracking with frantic shivers, the scent of nerves spiking through the air nearly as sharp as desire.

Derek drags his mouth back, Stiles’ protesting whine echoing deep in his own chest.

“Hey, just…” His voice is gravel-rough, his body hot and shuddery in a way he hasn’t felt in years. He feels like a teenager.

He feels _happy._

When he ducks in again it’s all slow, sweet drags of lips and long pent emotion. Stiles sighs into it, relaxing, arms looping around Derek’s neck, his body a long, lean press of soft skin and angled hips. They stay like that, shifting slowly against each other, until Stiles draws back, breathless, brows furrowing.

“Wait, why now?”

Derek could give a thousand reasons. He shrugs.

“I decided to stop fighting it.”

“About time,” Stiles sighs, and drags him back in.


	8. Not Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek can't make him stay.
> 
> (I wrote this in a very angsty headspace.)

“You _know_ how I feel.”

It comes out a grit of emotion shaped into sound, low and rough and wrenching free almost _despite_ his every instinct, as Stiles’ hand falls on the door.

It works, at least enough that he pauses, his tense shoulders loosening marginally. Derek feels a fleeting curl of hope in his gut before he recognizes the stance not as surrender, but defeat.

“I do.”

And that’s what Derek had wanted to hear too, except for the misery in Stiles’ voice when he says it. The words aren’t being torn from him, but... _forced_. Slow and precise, thick with meaning Derek can’t even begin to decipher. He steels himself as Stiles turns.

His eyes are gentler than Derek has ever seen them. Quiet and knowing, and piercing too deep into places Derek had never wanted anyone to see.

“I know how you feel,” Stiles echoes, lips tilting up, eyes going down. “About me, about yourself. And we can’t do this if… Derek, we’re never going to be able to be _anything_ until you start trusting one of us more, loving one of us more.”

It cuts deep and Derek flinches forward, because _that can’t stand._ Because Stiles should know, Stiles _said_ he knows how Derek feels.

He _has_ to know…

He has Stiles’ arm in his and Stiles’ eyes startled wide and staring straight back at him. And Derek can’t blink, can’t look away, can only swallow hard and let the next words fall out. Inevitable, because Stiles has always been able to tear down every barrier he’s tried to push up with a glance, a smirk, a well-chosen word.

“I _do_ trust you.” And that’s everything. To Derek, trusting Stiles, that’s _everything_. Stiles has to understand that, has to know that this thing between them would have never even started otherwise.

“I know.”

It’s not the refusal he was expecting, was bracing himself for, and for a horrible second he feels himself falter. Feels loose and adrift inside himself. Because then… if Stiles knows _that_ then…

Trust and love, he’d said.

“But I…” His words choke in his throat and all at once he feels sick. Realizes suddenly, terribly, that he’s never said the other thing. He’s been close more than once, in the rare, perfect moments when the world had felt safe enough for the words to bubble past his barriers and creep toward the surface. The times when he pulled back from a kiss to see Stiles’ eyes drinking him in like he was more than conventionally attractive, like he was  _beautiful_. When he woke up with Stiles curled warm and trusting in his unworthy arms, or came into the kitchen, wiping sleep from his eyes, to find a cup of coffee waiting for him, prepared just the way he liked it. Like this mattered enough to Stiles to have insignificant facts about Derek’s preferences memorized.

Like _he_ mattered.

And he’s felt it longer than that. Longer than he probably even realizes.

When Stiles dove thoughtlessly into danger to save people he shouldn’t even care about. (To save _Derek_.) When he stood – not close to fearless but so damn brave – against monsters most people couldn’t imagine in their most twisted nightmares. When he railed against Derek, eyes smirking and lips challenging, just for the hell of it, for the sheer thrill of matching snark for snark.

It’s been inside Derek for so long it’s become a basic truth of his existence. He needs air to breathe, he fails at everything he tries to mend, he loves Stiles. Simple, obvious. Fact. But he’s never found a way to force out the words.

He says them now, with a surety spurred by desperation, with a loosening in his chest of what feels like _relief_.

“I love you too.”

Stiles looks shattered by that for a heartbeat: warm, bright edges grating against the heartache he's been wearing this whole conversation. And Derek feels a shocking twist of hope that maybe it was really that simple, maybe he’d managed to fix this. Maybe, for once, he’d done something _right_.

But then, lips parting soundlessly, Stiles leans in to catch Derek’s in a slow kiss that still feels too much like goodbye. Derek tilts to deepen it, to maybe ease something, to reassure Stiles in some way his words haven’t managed.

And Stiles pulls away. A hand touches Derek’s cheek to steady him, to hold him back as he chases that mouth helplessly forward.

“I know,” Stiles breathes, lips twisting fast and pained and so  _beautifully_ sad. He kisses Derek again, soft and close-lipped, and Derek’s too shaken to even try to return it.

“I love you too,” he adds, and Derek knows. He doesn’t understand it but he _knows_. That’s never even been a question. He just doesn’t understand why this is happening now.

Stiles’ hand trails down his cheek, and his words from earlier are rattling uselessly through Derek’s mind.

_…start trusting one of us more, loving one of us more…_

There’s another kiss, this one rasping fast against his cheek like Stiles can’t quite help himself, and Derek wants to clutch at him, wants to beg for him to stay, but Stiles’ words are too heavy in him, making a sick sort of sense he’s only just starting to process. And he can’t make it better, he can’t rage against it, can’t fight for Stiles to stay when some deep part of him realizes he’ll be better off gone. When he _knows --_  had always known -- he would screw this up somehow. Not when he’s always held himself just a bit back because it would be better not to let Stiles too close, when he knew he didn’t deserve even this small taste he’s managed to glean of real happiness.

“Derek,” Stiles breathes, the words slipping out like something in his soul shattering. “I love you so fucking much. But I can’t be the only one.”

He’s still staring at the empty air where Stiles had stood when the door pulls shut again, leaving Derek alone with his demons.


	9. Almost

The hot cut of air against his jaw makes him freeze, mid-twist toward the Jeep door. There’s a prickle-line of awareness all up his body that can only mean one person. (And, hell, there’s only one person who’s enough of a socially maladjusted creeper to totally ignore personal boundaries like this anyway.)

He takes a breath and turns back slow, letting his body slump back against the sun-warmed metal.

The sharp lines of Derek’s face are highlighted in the dusk light, emphasizing the restless shift of his eyes, the tense line of his jaw.  

“Hey there,” Stiles says, and he’s going for casual but something about the light or the proximity or the way the air can’t _quite_ seem to drag into his lungs hits him sideways and it comes out _soft_. “Did you uh… want—”

“You left a book upstairs.”

Which Stiles knows, because he’d _meant_ to leave it there. Because the opportunities to invade Derek’s loft are few and far between, and having a halfway valid excuse to show up there at some point in the next few days had just seemed like a good… like a clever… well, it’d been an _impulse_ , ok? It'd been… he just…

He hadn’t wanted to leave yet.

And it’s probably that same impulse that has Stiles dragging a too loud breath, bobbing his head back toward the open window of his Jeep, saying “You could… just toss that in for me?”

Derek scans down Stiles’ face, eyes catching at odd angles and edges, on the way Stiles’ cheeks flare with the start of a hot flush. And then he’s closing in, all easy shift of muscle under leather.

He’s moving too slow and Stiles is _definitely_ watching too hard as he brackets Stiles in with a press of his left hand against the door, reaching past him with the right into the open window and dropping the book, casual as anything, down onto the driver’s seat. Stiles’ eyes are slipping shut, head dipping forward, chasing the scent and warmth and  _Derek_ with a dragging breath before he can stop himself. His hands are behind him, gripping at the door handle to keep him from doing anything unbearably stupid like clutching at Derek’s arms, like launching himself forward and just _feeling_ Derek all over.

But Derek’s not pulling back, his body a hot, close, perfect line of _almost_ vibrating just off the coast of Stiles’ skin. Almost too close, almost lingering too long, almost too fucking much to handle.

Derek’s next breath ghosts right against his mouth and his lips part, dragging it in greedily. And that’s fine. It’s not anything yet, still just almost. They can be _almost_. Almost is nothing. Almost has deniability. Almost is…

Almost is Derek’s hand sliding against the car until his forearm brushes so innocent along Stiles’ hip. Almost is the way Stiles shifts, eyes half-open, to chase Derek’s mouth as he pulls his arm back from the window, drinking in each of Derek’s breaths with hungry, hitched gasps. Almost is the way their bodies shift in some aching, unbearable, seamless dance, chasing the heat of each other and away without ever actually _touching._

“Good thing you’re so observant,” he says when it’s nearly too much, when it hits the edge of _go big or go away_. “I might’ve had to come back for it.”

Derek’s eyes flit between his and Stiles  _knows_ that Derek’s reading the truth in them – that Stiles had _wanted_ to come back. His lips curl like he’s won some prize and Stiles wants to shove at him but that would be _acknowledging_ it, so he just bites down on a grimace.

But then Derek’s saying: “You should be more careful. I might not always notice.”

He’s still bracketing Stiles against his car, hips one restless roll away from contact, and he’s fucking _flirting_ right into Stiles’ mouth. And they’ve been playing this game for months but suddenly almost doesn’t feel like enough anymore. Stiles feels a needy sound dragging up his throat, manages a tortured “I’ll work on that” to mask it.

He almost decides _screw it,_ almost releases his white-fisted grip on the door, almost says one of the hundred things that will push them straight out of the delicious, torturous safety of _almost_ and out into the open once and for all…

But then Derek’s pushing off the door again, lips still tilted, eyes too knowing as he steps back, slides his hands into his pockets. He starts to turn, pauses halfway - a long line of shadow, too bright edges, and flashing teeth.

“I wouldn’t be upset if you forget again sometime.”

Stiles swallows, throat tight with all the things he’s not quite up to saying… or Derek’s ears aren’t ready to hear.

“I’m kind of a scatterbrain,” he offers, and Derek meets his gaze, trails his eyes down, fast and scorching. He nods, a quick jut of chin, and that’s it. He’s moving away, disappearing back into the building. Leaving Stiles out in the lot, clutching at the door to his Jeep, head swimming with the dizzying swell of everything they _almost_ have.


End file.
